Teacher Talk – a #CELTAchat summary

Teachers are at greater risk of experiencing vocal problems and are more likely to consult doctors on voice disorders than most other occupational groups¹ and so unless you’re teaching the Silent Way, it’s highly likely you spend a fair amount of time in the classroom talking.

On pre-service teacher training courses, TT (teacher talk) is often covered in a session on Classroom Management early on the course although some trainers are concerned that this may be too early on and comes at a point when trainees are being overwhelmed with information. Should there be a separate input session on TT at another point in the course, or may it depend on trainees’ needs?

TT is frequently modelled during input sessions, though it’s important to reflect carefully on how it is used if you are providing a bad model – in case trainees get the wrong idea and end up copying you! Good TT is modelled in the Unknown Language component, yet TT is often still a point which is raised in teaching practice feedback throughout the course.

How can we define good and bad TT?

Examples of good or essential TT include:

giving and checking instructions

concept checking

drilling

rapport-building through input +1

leading feedback

error correction

eliciting

modelling language

clarifying language

Some examples of poor TT include:

echoing

commentary

wittering

unnatural TT (e.g. not using contractions)

ineffectively grading language

How can we make TT more effective?

Clarify whether TT is good or bad: as tutors, we sometimes give inexplicit feedback on poor TT and fail to highlight positive TT. We should be more concise when dealing with poor TT so that trainees have a clear focus for improvement, but also praise quality TT.

There was a suggestion to create an observation task which analyses the purpose and effectiveness of TT – this could perhaps involve transcription, especially if the class was recorded.

Another suggestion is for trainees to make TT more explicit in their lesson plans – wittering is an example of bad TT which can often occur during feedback stages when trainees haven’t clarified their role in the stage. Also, by making feedback stages more learner-centred, we can limit TT – by encouraging learners to lead and extend feedback, repeat answers, clarify language, etc.